How many times have you forgotten the birthday of an acquaintance? Without tools like Facebook, many of us would be hopeless. But Dennis Garsjo in Montana has never had that problem. And his unique skill has earned him a nickname: “The Birthday Guy”.
Dennis is 73 and estimates he knows close to 3,000 birthdays by heart.
In fact, when he walks around town he doesn’t use names. He calls people by their birthday. For those that don’t know him or his talent, the familiarity can sometimes take them by surprise.
Dennis came by his talent naturally. He says he has a tried and true method for memorization that he learned in college to help remember people's names. It's the acronym CAR: Concentrate on it. Associate it with somebody else with the same name and then Repeat it.
He doesn't think his talent is all that special and says he is more impressed by musicians who can play a song from memory on the piano.